After Southeast Michigan recorded its snowiest month in January, another round of snow has hit and is expected to fall in the area this week, and National Weather Service Meteorologist Matt Mosteiko said even he and his coworkers at the weather service’s White Lake office are sick of it.

“We are done with winter over here,” he said. “Let’s bring on the spring.”

Tuesday’s snowfall is expected to come around 7 p.m. and bring with it around three inches of the white powder until around 7 a.m. Wednesday, with the possibility of an extra inch coming in the early morning, said Mosteiko.

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Further south, he said, residents can expect a bit more snowfall, with the highest predicted accumulation being six inches closer to the Ohio border.

Wednesday will see gusts of blowing snow, with winds expected around 25 mph, while Thursday and Friday should be partly sunny but have high temperatures in the 16-degree range and lows of 2.

Last month broke the highest recorded snowfall record with 39.1 inches. The all-time snowiest month in Southeast Michigan reaches back to Feb. 1908, which had 38.4, Mosteiko said.

The total snowfall for the region has already surpassed the yearly average of around 42 inches, tallying 59.9 so far.

Roads pummeled, business slowed

Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County, said while the organization isn’t running out of salt to put on the ground, workers are running out places to put the snow.

The commission has used more than 60,000 tons of salt this winter, said Bryson, and has partnered with four different contracting companies for extra workers — a process that is bid out before winter starts, he added.

“In some subdivisions this has caused a narrowing of the roads,” he said, “(But it is) much less of an issue on most primary roads, which have wider shoulders and clear zones along the road.”

The cold has also slowed business in downtown areas such as Oxford, said Anna Taylor, whose boutique shop Pink & Charlie last week suffered frozen water pipes.

The business hooked up to its neighbor’s water supply and the frozen pipes haven’t affected the business, but the cold has “been a battle” this year, said the business owner.

The winter has kept people in their homes because people don’t want to walk around downtown in 10-degree weather, she said, “And you don’t blame them.

“When the snow melts and we have ice on the sidewalks, it’s a constant battle to keep (them) clear,” she said. “ We have to chop it off of the sidewalk. ... It’s been a very long, hard winter.”

Problems ahead?

Once Metro Detroit deals with the rest of the record-breaking winter, where the snow will go will become a problem, said Mosteiko.

Flooding in warmer weather will definitely affect the area, he said.

“Every day we take a sample of the snow and melt it down and see how much liquid is in it,” he said. “Other sites across Southeast Michigan also do that.

Once warmer weather rolls in, “If it melts all that snow, it’s going to be like it’s rained four inches, which will definitely cause flooding problems,” said Mosteiko.

So far, the snow-to-water equivalent is 3.9 inches.

Although Oakland County is at a higher elevation and flooding isn’t really as huge an issue, the Downriver area, along the Clinton River in Macomb County, and in the Saginaw valley near bodies of water there will all be at risk of floods, Mosteiko said.

“We have a lot of hard-packed snow from the snowstorm earlier in January that hasn’t melted, causing a very dense snow,” he said. “It’s a concern for the spring.”

Some downtown areas — such as Birmingham — combat the accumulation of snow with plows similar to tractors that move snow into dumpsters, said Public Services Director Lauren Wood. In Birmingham, once the snow is cleared from downtown streets, it’s moved to city of Birmingham properties, including the Public Services yard, Wood said.

“We plow the snow from the curbs into the middle of the street,’’ she said, “then we haul it away. It’s called ‘wind-rolling’ and it’s done to keep the vitality of downtown. It wouldn’t make sense to plow toward the curbs, (because) you’d be defeating the purpose of trying to attract people who want to walk around the downtown area.”

About the Author

John Turk covers the police beat and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners for The Oakland Press. He is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University. Reach the author at john.turk@oakpress.com
or follow John on Twitter: @jrturk.